


Time and Time Again

by waydownhadestown



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 17:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17288687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waydownhadestown/pseuds/waydownhadestown
Summary: “He examined the house Gansey had stopped at – it was hard to see much of it, concealed behind several large trees as it was, but it was certainly the most colorful one around; its exterior was a bright blue, and there was some sort of flashy sign in the front yard that appeared – though he couldn’t quite tell from this distance – to bear the word 'psychic' in large letters across its front.This was really quite bizarre.”Or – Declan, in the course of trying to track down a Ronan who doesn’t want to be found (again), finds himself somewhere he knows he shouldn’t be.





	Time and Time Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noharlembeat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/gifts).



> Written as part of the 2018 TRC gen/rarepair winter exchange.

He didn’t know where Ronan was, which, while not unusual or usually unwelcome, was in fact proving highly inconvenient at the moment, given that the message he needed to deliver was somewhat urgent and that Ronan had never once in his memory actually answered him on the cell phone.

He’d been in this situation before, of course, but this was the first time that both his backup plan (indirect action: calling Gansey; he, at least, was diligent about picking up or, failing that, actually responding to voice mails) and the backup to his backup plan (direct action: actually driving over to Monmouth himself) had failed. Gansey, two hours after Declan’s first call, was still unresponsive, and the Monmouth lot was devoid of both Gansey’s Camaro and the BMW Declan still couldn’t help thinking of as his father’s. He’d tried knocking on the door, without much hope – if the Camaro was out so was Gansey, and if the BMW was out so was Ronan; they neither of them were much for letting other people drive their cars.

Still, he decided to linger at the door for a little while in case they came back, or in case someone really was around and was just hiding from him. It wouldn’t be the first time. He suspiciously eyed the darkened upstairs windows, watching for any trace of movement but seeing nothing. He suspiciously eyed the doorstep, considering sitting down upon it to await their homecoming a while but finding himself unwilling to risk exposing his clothing to its filth. He drafted several text messages to Ronan containing the words “irresponsible” and “unacceptable” and even, childishly, “unfair,” and sent none of them. He called Gansey one more time.

Still no answer. He didn’t leave another voice mail. There was no point; he’d already left three, and one more felt unlikely to accomplish anything further. Anyway, Gansey probably wasn’t even with Ronan at the moment – both cars were gone, after all, chances were to separate locations. It would do him no good to make contact with one more person who couldn’t track his brother down or exercise any more control over him than Declan could.

He wished the Parrish kid had a cell phone.

10 more minutes came and went before frustration got the better of him and he finally conceded defeat, slipped his phone back into his pocket and his keys out of it, and started heading back across the parking lot to where he’d left his car. He’d just taken hold of the door handle when he saw it: a streak of violent orange out on the street, coming toward the Monmouth lot. The Camaro. He straightened up, expecting it to turn in, but it didn’t even slow as it approached the entrance – just went charging past, undeterred on its journey north.

Hmmm.

Declan weighed his options, glancing again at his phone. A text message notification had appeared on its screen in the minute he’d been away; not from Gansey and of course not from Ronan, who seemed even more religiously opposed to text-based communication than to simply answering his phone. It read, “7:00 pm?”

Declan sighed, ran a hand through his hair. He turned his head and looked down the road, searching for the Camaro – it was stopped at a red light at the intersection just past the lot. He squinted, trying to see through its windows. It was difficult to tell anything for certain, but he thought he could just make out shadowy figures inside. Two of them.

He needed to leave. 7:00 was fast approaching. He’d tried his best, had spent two extra hours in Henrietta after dropping Matthew back off at the dorm searching for Ronan and had made every conceivable effort to find him short of calling the cops. Ronan clearly didn’t want to be found. It was time to go. Gansey would get his messages eventually and call him back and Ronan would hear what he needed to hear then; it was pointless to continue this charade for any longer. It was time to give up.

This was what he said every time. It hadn’t worked out for him yet.

He texted back, “I may be a bit late,” and opened his car door.

 

He’d expected they’d be headed for the town center, but they’d kept going straight through, past the churches and shops and into an area that had steadily become more and more residential as they’d driven. Feeling slightly out of his element – he hadn’t spent much time in this part of town, nor could he imagine what sort of business Gansey might have here – Declan had continued following them at a distance down the increasingly quiet roads lined with increasingly shabby houses. He’d been startled when the Camaro had pulled into a driveway; had slammed to a sudden stop on the side of the road several houses behind, eliciting an angry honk from the pickup truck driving behind him. As he put the car in park, ignoring the middle finger presented to him as the truck blew past, he examined the house Gansey had stopped at – it was hard to see much of it, concealed behind several large trees as it was, but it was certainly the most colorful one around; its exterior was a bright blue, and there was some sort of flashy sign in the front yard that appeared – though he couldn’t quite tell from this distance – to bear the word “psychic” in large letters across its front.

This was really quite bizarre.

The Camaro’s front two doors opened, and Gansey and the girl – Blue, he remembered – got out. _Just_ Gansey and the girl. They walked together – him following her so closely they were nearly touching – to the front door, which she unlocked and threw open with a sort of familiarity that marked the house as definitively her own. She walked through the doorway first, extending a hand backward to push the door open behind her for Gansey. As he followed her in, putting his own arm out to take the door from her, Declan saw their fingers brush together. And linger.

So _this_ was why Gansey hadn’t been answering his phone.

The door swung closed behind them, and Declan leaned back in his seat, considering. He’d been hoping to get ahold of Gansey, had planned on following him into his destination upon arrival, but then they’d come _here_ instead of Nino’s or an ice cream parlor or any other public place, and he wasn’t certain that any information Gansey and the girl might be able to provide him about Ronan’s whereabouts would be helpful enough to be worth the inevitable association of the word _stalker_ with his image after he showed up on his brother’s friend’s girlfriend’s (?) doorstep uninvited. His hand floated above the gearshift as he contemplated simply leaving, heading back to Monmouth or maybe skipping town altogether – Ronan be damned; Declan’s patience after years as an elder sibling to Ronan and Matthew of all people was considerable but it was not unlimited, and he was growing tired of parenting a petulant child. It was not his job, after all, to raise his teenaged brother like a toddler.

Especially not when he had other, more pressing concerns.

He reached for his phone, checked the time, saw another text message from the same sender as before – “7:15. No later or I take my business elsewhere.”

Yet more reason to leave now – he ran the risk of being late as it was (it was at least a two-hour drive back to D.C.) and he really couldn’t afford to piss off this buyer. If Ronan didn’t want to be found it did not have to be Declan’s job to find him. Certainly it was not Declan’s job to go about stalking high schoolers his brother associated with. He ought to just drive away. He ought to have driven away already. Ronan be damned.

This was what he said every time.

He swore, once, indulging in the vulgarity, and climbed out of the car.

 

The house was loud and chaotic. He knew this because he could hear the goings-on of the house even from outside, standing in front of the front door and wondering if anyone had heard the doorbell over the shrieking and clattering and the incessant ringing of a telephone. He was just considering ringing again when he saw a shadow moving behind the glass, coming toward the door. He’d already opened his mouth to speak as the door swung open, was prepared to deliver the usual sort of monologue to the girl’s mother or whoever it was, the usual sort of Declan Lynch charm. _Hello, my name is Declan Lynch, so sorry to bother you but I happened to notice my friend’s car in the driveway and was wondering if you had seen him recently_.

The words died on his lips as he took in the girl standing before him.

Because it was more a girl than a woman; not much older than Declan himself, he would have guessed. She looked a lot like Blue, enough that Declan assumed they had to be related in some way – same brown skin, large eyes, low cheekbones, copious freckles. Unlike Blue’s, though, her hair was long, done up in some sort of braid too confusing for Declan to follow. Her nails were long, painted a bright sort of chemical yellow. Her legs, too, were long, long enough that Declan was actually startled. She was nearly as tall as he was. She was also, Declan noticed, wearing a shirt that ended several inches before her pants began.

For some reason, the usual sort of Declan Lynch charm seemed to have evaporated all of a sudden.

The girl eyed him sideways for a moment. Her eyebrows went up slightly at his suit-and-tie ensemble; her eyes lingered on his carefully styled hair. There was something vaguely unsettling in her stare, something about the way she looked him up and down that gave him the distinct impression she was seeing more than his clean and pressed exterior.

Dimly, he recalled the word “psychic” on the sign out front.

A slight sly smile poked at the edges of her lips as she said, “You’re his brother, aren’t you?”

Her voice was lovely, the pronounced Henrietta drawl Declan normally found irritating stretching her words in a way that reminded him of flowing honey – so lovely that it nearly lessened the jolt that went through Declan at what she had said. “I’m – excuse me – ”

“The raven one, I mean,” she continued, as if Declan had not spoken. “You’re his brother. You’re so much alike, I could almost get you two confused. Except the hair. And you’re shorter, too.”

“What – how do you know my brother?”

“How do you know my address?” the girl retorted. “I don’t remember inviting _you_ over here. Or did you come for… a reading?” Her eyes ran up and down him again, this time more slowly, lingering on… places decidedly lower than his hair.

 Declan took a step backward. “For a – no, I’m looking for Gansey. The boy who came in with your sister a minute ago. His car’s in the driveway. I need to talk to him – I’m looking for my brother, actually, and Gansey might know where he is. Unless he’s here already?” He tried to keep his voice from audibly creeping up hopefully on the last sentence. It was unlikely, he knew – no BMW in sight meant Ronan had certainly not come here of his own accord – but based on the way this girl was talking, it was entirely possible she’d kidnapped his brother and was holding him hostage as a sex slave of some sort.

Not, Declan thought, that she was likely to get a very enthusiastic performance out of him.

The girl shook her head. “Blue’s my cousin,” she said. “And your brother’s not around. Tragically. Hold on.” She turned away from the door, gripping the doorframe as she leaned back into the house. Behind her, Declan caught glimpses of figures moving around, heard snatches of laughter and children shouting and the telephone continuing to ring shrilly. The girl added her own voice to the noise, yelling backwards into the foyer: “BLUE! GET DOWN HERE AND BRING YOUR BOYFRIEND!”

The reply was distant and irritable, only half audible above all the noise: “GOD DAMMIT ORLA GO ANSWER THE PHONE OR I’LL SMASH IT OVER YOUR SKULL UNTIL ONE OF THEM BREAKS!”

Declan tried not to flinch.

“I’M GOING BUT SERIOUSLY YOU HAD BETTER COME TO THE DOOR RIGHT NOW!”

The girl – Orla – turned back to him. “She’ll be right with you,” she said. “Just wait here for a minute.” And then, as Declan opened his mouth to speak, still not sure what he intended to do – apologize for disturbing her, thank her for her help, ask her just how much time his brother spent in this household – she turned away, leaving the door hanging wide open, giving a cheery wink and wave over her shoulder as she strode down a hall toward the violently shaking telephone on the wall.

It was then that Gansey and Blue came to the door. Neither of them looked pleased to see him – Gansey’s expression had soured ever so slightly as he’d looked away from Blue to find Declan standing in front of him, as it always did, in a way he probably thought was unnoticeable but which Declan had spent many years learning to notice every time his father looked between him and Ronan. Declan began speaking quickly, offering an explanation for his presence – he’d seen the Camaro, Gansey hadn’t answered his phone, he really did need to see Ronan immediately to give him an urgent warning (now this never failed to win Gansey over; in this at least, this desire to protect Ronan from the effects of his own carelessness, they were unconditional allies) and he had to be back in D.C. before 7. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gansey’s expression softening, as he’d known it would, as it always did, and Blue’s guarded stance relaxing somewhat, but he wasn’t looking at either of them, even as they stepped forward onto the doorstep, even as Gansey started speaking, pulling the door shut behind him; he was looking over Gansey’s shoulder and down the hall at the girl – at Orla – as she tucked the phone between her shoulder and chin and gave him a flirtatious wave of her fingers and a smirk, trying to catch one last glimpse of her before the door shut completely between them.

 

He hadn’t meant to go back to the psychics’ house.

He had no business there and he knew it. He had always kept up with what his brother and his friends were up to generally, of course; he wasn’t stupid or callous enough to leave Ronan unattended, no matter how often he wished he could be. They were mixed up with some strange stuff, some _dangerous_ stuff, even, what with Ronan’s dreaming and Ronan’s inability to consider consequences ever and Gansey’s strange fixation on dead Welsh kings that over the past few months seemed to have transformed from a charming quirk of personality into a morbid obsession and whatever on earth was going on with the Parrish kid, who in recent days had changed in Declan’s estimation from polite if standoffish to… genuinely creepy, somehow _off_. He didn’t have the details and he’d never wanted to have the details; he’d of course been curious about some things, about where the group of them went on weekends when the Camaro disappeared up into the mountains and why on earth an elderly British man had moved in with Gansey and his brother for an extended period of time and things of that sort, but ultimately he did not have time to spend puzzling it all out himself and those were hardly the sort of questions he wanted to try asking of a brother who hated the sight of him. Ultimately, he reasoned, it didn’t matter exactly what they were doing, because they seemed to be doing it together, and as a general rule he trusted Gansey (and even, he had to admit, Parrish) almost more than he trusted himself these days when it came to his brother’s wellbeing.

Besides, Declan Lynch was a busy man; he had another brother to shepherd through high school (almost as difficult to deal with as the first, though for very different reasons) and a black market operation to run and a reputation to keep up and political connections to make and college classes of his own to pass besides. As fascinating as the exploits of Ronan and his gang might be, Declan only had so much time to follow it all, and so he had been content to understand only half the picture.

Until now.

He wasn’t sure what made this time different. Yes, then, there was a house of psychics, in whose company his brother spent an indeterminate amount of time, from whose ranks Gansey had apparently selected a paramour; this was hardly the strangest thing Declan had seen. What did it matter to him if his brother consorted with psychics? His brother also pulled flaming swords and glowing orbs and living human beings out of dreams, like his father before him, and Declan had been dousing them with water and selling them and loving them for as long as he could remember. Yes, then, his brother was spending more and more time apart from Gansey, alone in the company of Adam Parrish. (For this was where Declan had eventually found him, after Gansey had referred him to a tiny apartment above the church he attended every Sunday, his prayers for Ronan to come to his senses apparently drifting directly through Parrish’s living space on their way to heaven. Ronan had been lying on the floor, shirtless, and Adam had been seated at the overturned box he apparently used as a desk, completing the English homework Ronan doubtless did not intend to turn in.) What of it? He had known of or suspected his brother’s inclinations this way for years, guessed at his interest in Parrish specifically for weeks; none of this came as a surprise. Declan did not understand it, wondered also at Ronan’s specific choice of boy (there was something about Adam Parrish that he would never trust), but although he had many reasons to be displeased with his brother, he had decided somewhere along the line that this was not – nor ever would be – one of them.

So yes, there was no real reason for Declan to become suddenly more deeply invested in the details of his brother’s affairs, save one: a tall, long-haired one with a wicked grin and a four letter name.

He had found her attractive; he would be lying to himself if he pretended otherwise, and despite all of Ronan’s accusations that Declan was deceptive by his very nature he was rarely dishonest with himself at least. But there was more to it than that. That look in her eyes, the way she sized him up – it was as if she had seen right _through_ him, had looked past his charming exterior and right into his deepest secrets.

He had to know what she had seen.

So here he was, one Sunday later; he’d driven into town for Mass with Ronan and Matthew according to the usual routine, exchanged the necessary unpleasantries with Ronan and taken Matthew to brunch before dropping him back off at school, and headed back across town to the blue house (the address of which he’d found online listed as a business, offering palm readings and card readings and cleanses of various sorts, which had made him feel slightly more comfortable with the idea of showing up again uninvited). He hadn’t been sure what he would say if the door had been opened by Orla’s mother or Blue’s mother or anyone else who lived in the house (because it seemed to contain a great number of people, judging from the noise level), but he needn’t have worried; the doorbell was answered directly by Orla herself, looking much as she had a few days ago.

“You’re back,” she said, seeming not at all surprised. “Haven’t you found your brother by now?”

“Found him and lost him again, but that’s not why I’m here today.”

“Oh, really? Then why _are_ you here?”

“I was in town. I figured I’d stop by.”

“For a reading?”

He had expected the question this time and prepared accordingly, had read numerous reviews posted online by previous visitors to the house, had had any lingering doubts about the validity of the psychic abilities of its inhabitants removed by comment after comment even from previous skeptics about the startling accuracy of the descriptions of their pasts and presents, of the predictions of their futures. None of them left with their questions unanswered, but only some of them left happy. And all of them left feeling a vague and pervasive sort of uneasiness at the fact that, for a few brief moments, a few strangers had known them better than they had known themselves.

Declan didn’t like the thought of laying his mind bare before a stranger. He didn’t like being uneasy. He didn’t always like being honest. He was confident and charming and desperate to remain viewed as such; to place himself in the hands of psychics, he knew, would be to invite them to poke and prod at his image, which he suspected was too flimsy to stand up against this sort of treatment. It didn’t make any sense to allow them to do this, just as it didn’t make any sense to be here in the first place. He ought to leave, he knew. He ought to just go find himself another any of the others before Ashley had been, just as fake and shallow as he was himself, and work on rubbing shoulders on the next campaign trail, and pass his classes, and worry about Ronan from afar rather than getting himself involved in a world he didn’t belong in.

But Declan Lynch had a history of doing stupid things when it came to magic.

It was forbidden fruit to him, something he could never have and knew he was better off never having – he had seen what it had done to his father, he saw what it might do to his brother in his nightmares every time he went to sleep – but something he couldn’t help longing for anyway, touching it whenever he could. There was a reason he’d agreed to start accompanying his father on trips and training to take over the family business, even when he was only sixteen, even before Niall died and cleaning up after his mess became a matter of life and death for the rest of them, even when he knew that this attention his father was paying him was only a poorly-disguised attempt to make something useful out of a useless son after all. Rubbing shoulders with the supernatural world like this was dangerous for someone like him, and he would probably end up unhappy for it, but he would do it anyway. Time and time again, he did it anyway.

And whatever magic Orla Sargent was performing on him, it was working.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve heard this place is the best around.”

That grin crept back across her face. “You’d better come inside then.”

 

It wasn’t Orla who did the reading, to his disappointment, but two older women, one of whom bore an even stronger resemblance to Blue than Orla and introduced herself as “Maura,” and the other of whom didn’t look much like any of the others and introduced herself as “Shuffle the cards.” Feeling somewhat foolish, he did so, expertly, laying the stack back down on the table.

“Spread them out in a line,” Maura instructed, though not harshly. “Make sure you touch every one of them. It’s best if your energy is spread evenly over the deck.”

The other woman turned to face Declan. “Pick ten cards,” she said, briskly. “Slide them forward, but don’t flip them over or spin them around. And keep them in order.”

There was a beat of silence, almost as if the two of them were waiting for someone else to speak, but before Declan could open his mouth Maura abruptly spoke again. “Calla is going to touch your shoulder now, if that’s okay. Her gift is amplified by touch. It will be much easier for us to get an accurate reading if we have a point of contact.”

Orla flashed him a grin from the chair across the room where she was seated. Feeling wary, Declan nodded. “That’s fine.” Calla moved closer to him, one small palm raised. He’d barely had the time to wonder what it would feel like when she touched him – would there be some sort of jolt? Would he feel the magic coursing through him? – when he felt her hand on his left shoulder, firm and steady.

 “Oh,” Calla said, sounding somewhat startled. “Oh,” she said again, sounding smug this time. “ _Oh_ ,” she said one final time, sounding satisfied. “I can see why your brother doesn’t like you very much.”

And just like that, they began to unravel him.

 

After, Orla took him upstairs. For a moment he had thought she might be leading him to her bedroom, and his heart had begun pounding embarrassingly quickly, but instead she brought him through a door that led outside, onto a sort of balcony that overlooked the backyard. It was nice up there – quieter than the house, the early fall breeze stirring their hair. They sat in silence for a while before Orla broke it.

“You know, you oughta talk to my cousin sometime. I think you two would have a lot to say to each other.”

Declan was not sure that a girl like Blue Sargent would have anything positive to say to a boy like him, but he nodded anyway.

Orla continued, “About being different, I mean. From your family and all. Not having the magic, or whatever.”

“Is she not psychic?” Declan was surprised. From what he recalled of Blue – prickly, bizarrely dressed, currently romantically involved with Gansey – he would never have assumed she was ordinary. Or whatever.

Orla nodded. “Not like the rest of us, anyways. She pretends it doesn’t bother her but I know she’s lying. It’s a psychic thing.” She laughed, a little bit sadly. “I feel bad about it, a lot of times. But I can’t change who I am, you know? And neither can your brother.”

“My brother.” Declan didn’t want to talk about Ronan right now and hoped his tone conveyed it, but Orla didn’t seem the type who picked up well on subtle hints.

“Yeah, your brother. Where is he, anyways? I wouldn’t mind having my way with him for an hour or two.”

Declan looked away, out over the impressively large tree in the backyard. “Unfortunately for you, I don’t think you’re quite his type.”

She snorted. “He go in more for the quiet and gentle, then?”

Declan thought about Parrish’s hands, the way they often curled into fists inside his pockets but also the way they relaxed when he caught Ronan’s eye, the way Ronan looked at him when they brushed his forearm. “In a way,” he said. “But not for girls, is what I was getting at.”

“That’s a pity. Guess I’ll just have to settle.” She smirked.

“You have no tact. We just spent 20 minutes analyzing the roots of my insecurities, and now you’re stepping on them on purpose.”

She laughed, and a thrill ran through him. “I didn’t know you were funny,” she said.

“Don’t expect it often. I’m really a very boring person.”

“That’s okay. I’m exciting enough for the both of us. All you have to do is stand around and look nice.”

“Is that really all?”

“You’re right. You’ll have to do more than stand there.” Another suggestive look. Declan hoped he wasn’t blushing. He had dated a good many girls, none of whom could fairly be called _shy_ when it came to sex, and was hardly a stranger to the act himself (Ronan had once, memorably, referred to him as a “man-whore”), but Orla, it seemed, was an entirely different animal in this regard.

“What makes you think you’ll see me again?”

“I’m psychic, remember? Also, incredibly hot. You’ll be coming back here within a week.”

It was Declan’s turn to laugh. “Don’t be so sure,” he said.

“You will.”

He would.

“I might be busy.”

“Not too busy for me.”

Time and time again, he would.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and I really hope you enjoyed it! Comments/feedback are always welcome.
> 
> I can be found on Tumblr at ros-and-guil-are-dead.


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